The Mega Dead Celebrity Thread

[Bush985]

I have been watching wrestling since I was young, stopped for a long time, and recently started again.. Benoit has always been a favorite. He will be missed.

 

McMahon Death angle is def. over now. On that note, McMahon actually had something to say at the beg. of the show.

 

Truly a sad day.

 

RIP Chris Benoit 6/25/07

[Rugged One]

Yeah, I turned on RAW at 8 pm and there's his face with 1967-2007. Unbelievable. Just unbelievable. It's especially sad, since his family was involved as well.

 

RIP Crippler. You were truelly one of the great performers.

[ltp74]

Sadly pro-wrestler death's have become so common many people have become numb to it but this one is such a shocker since Benoit was amazing in the ring and his wife and 7 year old son also passed.

 

Here is the latest from Dave Meltzer's website.

 

www.wrestlingobserver.com/wo/

 

6/25/2007 9:41:00 PM

Update on Chris Benoit

 

There is very little conclusive regarding the death of Chris Benoit, wife Nancy and son Daniel.

 

The three were found dead by the sheriff's department in Peachtree City, GA, after a WWE official had called because they had been unable to reach Chris after numerous attempts.

 

Lt. Tommy Pope told the Associated Press that it was being investigated as a homicide pending results of a preliminary autopsy report that will come out tomorrow. No gunshot wounds were found.

[307]

Awful day. I've been following Benoit for nearly ten years now, since his WCW days, and to see him struck down like this saddens and sickens me. He will not be forgotten.

[Chadley]

Like many others...Chris Benoit inspired me when he wrestled. He was what you wanted to see in the ring. The wrestler who did everything to the best of his ability. Nothing was second rate about a Chris Benoit match. Chris was always said to be a very private man at home, while we who watched him knew him as extremely determined and even more intense. You didn't see the "Rabid Wolverine" smile much, but when he did you were bound to see the snaggle-toothed grin.

 

This news just completely floored me. I remember back in the 80's hearing about this kid coming up in Stu Hart's dreaded dungeon named Chris Benoit. Hearing that he was early on being touted as the next Bret "Hitman" Hart. Then for the next twenty years getting to see this man wrestle...I have to say he may be the only man IMO to be a better all-around technician than Bret Hart.

 

He will be missed.

 

RIP Chris Benoit 1967-2007

[CoasterEricHP]

Whats even more flooring is that WWE.com is now saying that their deaths was the result of a double murder suicide.

 

Apparently Benoit did not appear to a Pay Per View show sunday night for "family reasons" and investigators think he may have killed his wife and kid and then himself a day later.

 

That'd be ridiculously awful..

[Bush985]

I figured as much that was the situation when I heard he skipped out of Sunday Nights PPV. I was wondering if it was him or his wife, but he appears to be the bigger suspect. Still a crazy, crazy situation. Sad.

-RD

[Freefallbestrideever]

Suicide, i can kind of understand. Murder? Maybe, but taking out your own family and then yourself is very deep....this is a time i'd like to be a psychologist

R.I.P. Chris -l-

[Robgraves]

Suicide, i can kind of understand. Murder? Maybe, but taking out your own family and then yourself is very deep....this is a time i'd like to be a psychologist

R.I.P. Chris -l-

 

 

yay for my field of study

 

here is my theory. based off the only things the police have said so far.

1. no one was shot or stabbed

2. it will seem very bizzare.

3. nancy died saturday in the living room, daniel sunday in his bedroom, and chris monday in the weight room.

4. the police were called by WWE officals after several workers recieved strange texts from chris that worried them.

 

Nancy and he have a fight on saturday, something occurs and it gets heated and nancy swing at chris or something and he grabs he and somehow accidentally kills her i.e. strangles, broken neck.

 

The kid is a witness... chris is freaked out and stews about it all day trying to find a way out of it.. the kid is asking questions and its scaring chris even more, somehow he comes to the decision thatkilling his son is the only option, probably a reaction of pure fear.

 

After commiting that act he realizes what he has done, he spends a day trying to figure out how to make it look like she killed daniel then herself, or like someone else did it... but the guilt, the pain,, its unbearable... all the realization of what he has done occurs and he realizes he cannot bring himself to continue to live after this, and on monday afternoon kills himself.

 

 

Like i said, this is just armchair police work at the moment, but i will be surprised if the actual police report doesn't read close to that.

[stingrock23]

This really sucks. He was the best technical wrestler in the WWE, and just had great intensity in all of his matches. I don't watch wrestling as much as I used to, but I try to catch it here and there.

 

A guy here at work found something posted by someone in the sheriff's office which said that his wife killed his son, called him home, then he killed her in an act of rage for killing his son. He then hung himself.

 

I can't say whether or not that is indeed fact, but that's the story I've got.

 

This is a sad day.

 

R.I.P. Canadian Crippler

[browntggrr]

This is sad.

 

Perhaps it is just me, but it just seems that the wrestling profession has black cloud over it.

 

Bryan Pillman, Owen Hart, Davey Boy Smith, Boss Man, Eddie Guerrero, Kurt Henning, Hercules Hernandez, Rick Rude.... and the list continues.

 

Yeah, steroids plays a big part in hurting these men, but some of these deaths are just freakishly tragic.

 

Chris Benoit seemed to be one of the good guys. He gave his all to a profession that really does not give much back. Obviously he had some mental issue to do something like this, and I'm going to throw a wild stab out there and say that somehow drugs were involved- weather it be steroids or some other type.

 

And while on the surface the WWE is putting on a great show of smoke and mirrors concerning this incident (cancelling last night's show) and making it look like they care about their performers, they really need to do something about steroid abuse.

 

Either way, it doesn't matter now. I just hope that someone in Connecticut wakes up soon.

[Eric_Smith]

I have the theory that it was something like a gas in his NEW

house. Benoit has no reason to kill his family.

[bigstevet07]

I have the theory that it was something like a gas in his NEW

house. Benoit has no reason to kill his family.

 

 

That may be a good theory, but there are reports that his friends received some odd text messages from him Sunday night. Investigators believe he killed his son and wife during the weekend and then did himself in on Monday.

 

The is absolutely tragic, he was a great wrestler, you could always tell he loved what he did and gave his all. I feel horrible for his other 2 kids that he had through a different relationship.

[edh]

I was looking around to see some info, and I found this. This is weird. It was posted before anything was released. And the IP is from Standford, CT. Isn't that where the headquarters is? http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Chris_Benoit&diff=prev&oldid=140442953

[Divv3k]

I'm floored by this. I haven't watched wrestling much in the last few years but Benoit was an idol of mine when I was a big fan in the late 90s.

 

I don't want to get into any speculation over the circumstances of his and his family's deaths. I'll just say how sad this makes me feel.

 

Hopefully we'll get to find out how this actually happened.

[edh]

This is crazy.

Pro wrestler Chris Benoit strangled his wife and smothered his son before hanging himself in his weight room, a law enforcement official close to the investigation told The Associated Press Tuesday.

 

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/more/06/25/wrestler.dead.ap/index.html?cnn=yes

[Robgraves]

This is crazy.

Pro wrestler Chris Benoit strangled his wife and smothered his son before hanging himself in his weight room, a law enforcement official close to the investigation told The Associated Press Tuesday.

 

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/more/06/25/wrestler.dead.ap/index.html?cnn=yes

 

like i said... can i call it or can i call it.

 

and as far as the list of dead from before... steroids really were only related to eddies death via his heart enlargement. Anabolic steroids are not quite as dangerous as is perceived in the media, when properly used. Most of those deaths were more related to painkiller and drug use that is usually caused by the amount of injury these guys recieve on a nightly basis mixed in with the constant road schedule, which for most wwe wrestlers is 300+ days a year. they start taking painkillers for the pain and uppers to keep themselves going. One of the things i can blame on the "McMAhon" way of doing things, where the wrestlers are seen more as property than as people sometimes and are in constant fear of losing thier spot.

[Robgraves]

ok, new bit of info from the DA... apparantly all three bodies were found with bibles placed next to them. It seems Nancy was strangled sometime fri night/sat morning, and was bound at the hands and feet. The son was mothered later in his bed, and sometime sat/sun chris killed himself with the pully rope of his weight stack.

 

The bible part just kinda creeped me out... this should be an interesting one to follow and it is starting to sound like the plot of an L&O episode or something.

[bulldogmom]

Wow.

 

I don't know anything about wrestling, and had never heard of this guy before, but have been following the story because I'm interested in crime, professionally and personally. What a tragedy when a whole family is killed, especially a kid. Most people who commit murder-suicide "go off the deep end" and do it all at once, the murders then the suicide. The fact that there were long spaces in between the deaths support Robgraves' theory of what happened, which makes perfect sense to me- that he got into a fight with his wife and accidentally killed her- or maybe just snapped.

 

Strangulation is considered a "sexual" means of murder, since it's hands-on, and most likely occurs when a man kills a woman. I'm not sure what to make of the bound hands and feet- it could have been a kinky sex act gone out of control, which comes to mind first. It seems an odd piece of

the puzzle, unless he was planning to stage a burglary or something. Smothering, as was done to the kid, is more of a hands-off method in which the victim is depersonalized, as you can't see their face while you're doing it. I agree that he probably killed himself due to the excessive amount of guilt he felt, a theory that would be supported by the presence of the Bibles, a token of regret or sympathy. Who knows what went on in his head between the killings? What a horrible thing, for everybody involved. As for the kid, according to a profiling class I took, many times people who commit murder/suicide kill kids, pets, or others who depend on them because they feel they want to "take them with them" to the afterlife and that they could not be properly cared for if left alive. Disturbed thinking, of course, but so is the whole thing.

 

Whatever happened, it's likely that this guy had psychological problems for some time. This sort of thing doesn't just happen out of the blue. As for steroids, I don't know that much about them- other than they're not good if used excessively- but I would question their role in contributing to something this severe.

 

Anyway, my condolences to all of the victims and their families.

[Robgraves]

 

 

Strangulation is considered a "sexual" means of murder, since it's hands-on, and most likely occurs when a man kills a woman. I'm not sure what to make of the bound hands and feet- it could have been a kinky sex act gone out of control, which comes to mind first.

 

you know that crossed my mind too... like a possible thing where he killed he accidentally, then just sorta freaked out. still though, it seems we may never know... for the most part i will say your thinking fall right down along my lines as well...

 

one thing does not sit well with me though, other than the bibles...

 

The fact that they say he was hung with the pulley cable on his weight set... I just got back from the gym, and i had this in mind while i was there, and while doing some cable execises decided to sorta try it out for myself...

 

chris and I were roughly the same height, about 5' 8" the pulley is about a foot or two above my head... and well within arms reach... the cables are not really easy to tie, and have an average weight on them of about 130lbs if its for a single arm, to about 250 for a double arm i.e. a pulldown bar. That would be a VERY complicated and difficult suicide. I played with is and while i see how it would have been POSSIBLE, it just seems like it wouldt be one of the first things that would come to mind.

[307]

You guys are taking the most logical steps in trying to figure out what could potentially have been the issue here... something in which the other forums I post on that are discussing the matter have failed to do. Kudos.

[Robgraves]

lol, thanks, i thrive on my logic skills.

 

seriously though, it comes from years of study and an ability to looks at all situations from an objective observer point of view.

[Chadley]

This is pure speculation, at least to some point, but I suspect there'll be more along the lines of long-term steroid abuse, (he was probably no stranger to pain killers either with his slew of neck problems over the years) that will come to the surface.

 

Steroid and pain killer abuse can bring about incredible bouts of rage. In the long term, it can affect the user mentally too. Another wrestler mentioned earlier, Brian Pillman, was a prime example. In his last 2-3 years of life he became so psychotic in his speech, actions, etc. he was let go because he basically could no longer fuction.

 

Another real life example is Kurt Angle. A whole string of injuries dating back to the '96 Olympics when he one the gold medal with a broken neck. Then he chose to take up pro wrestling where he would be injured again and again. So much his own wife said she was afraid she'd see him die during a match someday.

 

When he left WWE for TNA last year he admitted his addiction to pain killers. He was told by doctors he probably should even be alive since he was ingesting somewhere between 70-80 pills a day.

 

Back to the Benoit case, police said earlier they did find antibolic steroids in the house, as well as, dozens of prescription bottles. Whether this led in part to the happenings...I don't know.

 

I'm still just floored by all of this!

[edh]

From wwe.com

 

WWE/Benoit timeline

Written: June 26, 2007On Saturday, June 23, Chris Benoit was slated to appear at a WWE live event in Beaumont, Texas. That afternoon, Benoit contacted WWE to inform them that his wife and child were ill, and that he would not be able to attend the show.

 

WWE executives rebooked Benoit’s flight for the following morning, allowing Benoit to miss the Beaumont event making alternate arrangements for him to attend the pay-per-view event in Houston on Sunday.

 

WWE employees attempted to confirm with Benoit his travel plans but were unable to contact him.

 

Early Sunday morning, between 3:51 and 3:58 a.m., Benoit sent five text messages to co-workers:

 

 

 

Text Message 1 to two co-workers (sent 6/24 at 3:53am)- Chris Benoit’s cell phone

“My physical address is 130 Green Meadow Lane, Fayetteville Georgia. 30215”

 

Text Message 2 to two co-workers (sent 6/24 at 3:53am)- Chris Benoit’s cell phone

“The dogs are in the enclosed pool area. Garage side door is open”

 

Text Message 3 to two co-workers (sent 6/24 at 3:54am)- Nancy Benoit’s cell phone

“My physical address is 130 Green Meadow Lane.

Fayetteville Georgia. 30215”

 

Text Message 4 to two co-workers (sent 6/24 at 3:55am)- Nancy Benoit’s cell phone

“My physical address is 130 Green Meadow Lane.

Fayetteville Georgia. 30215"

 

Text Message 5 to one co-worker (sent 6/24 at 3:58am)- Nancy Benoit’s cell phone

“My address is 130 Green Meadow Lane. Fayetteville Georgia. 30215”

 

 

 

Throughout the day on Sunday, WWE made numerous attempts to contact Benoit both at home and at local hospitals in the Atlanta area. As of 11:00 p.m., WWE officials were unable to establish contact with Chris Benoit.

 

At 12:30 p.m. on Monday, June 25, WWE officials were notified of the text messages sent to the co-workers the previous day. By 12:45 p.m., WWE had contacted Fayetteville County Sheriff’s office requesting they check on the Benoit family.

 

Fayetteville County Sheriffs office made contact with WWE at approximately 4:00 p.m. advising that they had entered the house of Chris Benoit and found three deceased bodies – an adult male, adult female and a male child. WWE was told that Benoit’s home was now considered a major crime scene.

 

The decision to cancel the live event scheduled in Corpus Christi that night was made between 4:00 and 5:00 p.m. In keeping with company policy, and with limited knowledge regarding facts of the case, WWE choose to air a memorial dedicated to the career of Chris Benoit. As facts emerged surrounding the case, all tributes to Chris Benoit were removed both on-air and on WWE.com.

[Robgraves]

and as far as the steroid angle...

 

 

STAMFORD, Conn., June 26, 2007 – World Wrestling Entertainment is stunned and saddened by the details released by local authorities concerning the double homicide-suicide involving Chris Benoit, his wife, Nancy, and his son, Daniel.

 

However, WWE is concerned with the sensationalistic reporting and speculation being undertaken by some members of the media following the press conference held by the Fayette County Sheriff’s Department and the District Attorney. During the press conference, the investigating authorities made the following points, all of which run contrary to the media speculation that "roid rage" was a factor in the senseless murders and suicide:

 

1. The authorities stated that all drugs found in the house were believed to be legal prescriptions.

 

2. Steroids were not, and could not, be related to the cause of death (asphyxiation). Authorities had no factual basis to speculate as to Benoit’s state of mind, and rightly did not do so.

 

3. Toxicology tests have not even been completed, so there is no current evidence that Benoit even had steroids or any other substance in his body. In that regard, on the last test done on Benoit by WWE's independently administered drug testing program, done on April 10, 2007, Benoit tested negative.

 

4. The physical findings announced by authorities indicate deliberation, not rage. The wife's feet and hands were bound and she was asphyxiated, not beaten to death. By the account of the authorities, there were substantial periods of time between the death of the wife and the death of the son, again suggesting deliberate thought, not rage. The presence of a Bible by each is also not an act of rage.

 

5. WWE strongly suggests that it is entirely wrong for speculators to suggest that steroids had anything to do with these senseless acts, especially when the authorities plainly stated there is no evidence that Benoit had steroids in his body, pending the toxicological reports, and that they had no evidence at this time as to the motive for these acts.

 

WWE is continuing to monitor the ongoing investigation being conducted by local authorities

 

truth is... nothing like this can be caused by steroids.

 

and the use of steroids in wrestling PALES in comparison to other sports... you didnt hear of people blaming steroids when OJ killed his wife? never A$$-U/ME

 

 

based on the timeline now available i will say without a shadow of a doubt he did it, and after more careful consideration i can see how the hanging via cable works... went back and played with looping the clamp and single handing it with a spot to see the pressure and how well it would work (never do this kids) though truthfully we may never know the real reasons why.